Google has also taken an ownership in Kobalt. Kobalt is a loss-leading company ‘buying’ share into the publishing market. Could we soon see Kobalt’s board of directors talking about a new copyrights contract with Google… with some Google representatives in it?;

Google is also helping governments organize their collection societies and distribution of copyrights;

And now we hear that Google tried to buy a 50% stake in Sony/ATV, the world’s biggest music publisher.

In addition, Google recently sponsored the following events:

– The Politico conference, Copyrights & Wrongs, on April 19th in Brussels. Politico is a magazine specializing in news about what is going on in Washington and in Brussels – it is very influential.

Apparently, thinking that spending all this money is an attempt to wear down the value of copyright is pure paranoia.

YouTube’s own Christophe Müller and Robert Kyncl have both recently made grandstanding claims of how much money will pour into the music business if YouTube is just allowed to keep growing off the back of the industry’s assets.

In 2008, Warner Music Group decided to remove its catalogue from YouTube – but couldn’t.

The major estimates that in the year that followed, it spent $2m on “largely unsuccessful” attempts to block/remove its copyright content on YouTube.

This experience led it to conclude: “It is impossible for a copyright owner to withdraw its works from a major service relying on the safe harbors.”

As a result, according to recent US copyright filings, Warner signed a licensing deal with YouTube in September 2009 – an agreement it now freely admits was scarcely better than the offer it rejected in 2008 for “failing to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists”.

On YouTube, you can send 100 take down requests for copyright-infringing content, but by the time you’ve completed that set, another 1,000 new uploads can have appeared.

That is where Warner’s $2m went. It is a losing battle.

Surely the most powerful search engine in the world – the group that has put photos of your house on the net and given you access to satellite views of every inch of of Planet Earth – has the technology to recognize abuse of copyright.

When those working for musicians issue take-down notices, Google must make sure that the offending material stays down.

If it refuses, it is surely time for the King to show the Mammoth who really rules the kingdom.